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Since the whole having [traditional[ races be psionic was mentioned, and in light of all the racial variants presented on the APG. Would it be possible to have a psionic variant for each of the standart races?
That would make a great supplement, but I wouldn't expect to see that in Psionics Unleashed.
Four prestige classes have been sent off for review before posting in the Beta release.
Also, since I'm having a hard time keeping track of all the places I'm keeping updated:
All Psionic Powers are now available for Beta testing.
Everything looks incredible so far. Once my check comes in, count me as one more sale :D
Thanks!
I think the Beta has come along quite nicely from the Alpha, to be quite honest, even if I am more than a little biased.
That being said:
Psionic Races
Cerebremancer and
Metamind
are all now available for Beta testing.
As others, I have reservations regarding the Soulknife. It's far too powerful, but more importantly for my tastes, it drastically changes the flavor of the class as it is currently written, and I really wish we had seen some idea of where the class is heading.
Kevin - the Soulknife has actually had some of the most frequent updates of all the classes - it's had two Alpha versions posted, along with the current Beta.
That being said, there will likely be a second Beta release for the Soulknife.
I'm just waiting for the beta-Wilder ...
It's coming :) I've just been thinking it through carefully. I'd really prefer that any Beta I put up from this point forward be as close to ready for release as possible - which is why the Soulknife will be getting a Beta 2 release. The Psychic Warrior might... especially changes to the Feral path, but that one needs far fewer adjustments than the Soulknife.
EDIT - and since I can still edit this post:
Psionic Feats now available for Beta testing.
Two more prestige classes are in the final review before being posted for Beta - the psionic fist and the phrenic slayer. That leaves the thrallherd as the last remaining from the Alpha to be updated.
The Wilder is also in final review before being posted for Beta. Once the Wilder is posted, I'll be focusing on minor tweaks for the Psychic Warrior and then a deep dive into the Soulknife.
For any interested the Deryni series by catherine Kurtz and the Dune series by Frank Herbert also with two great miniseries by scifi channel are great for psi baced characters as well as Marrion Zimmer Bradleys Darkover novels :) All three groups specifically use Psionics instead of magic in their fantasy and scifi :) So to does Babylon 5.
For those who were worried about the soulknife, you can see the thread about the changes I have planned here.
Now, none of those changes are set in stone, but they should give you an indication of the type of changes to expect for the Soulknife while continuing through Beta.
Additionally, the Thrallherd Beta will hopefully be out this week. Psionic Monsters would also be great to get out this week, but that's pretty lofty with as much work as I've been putting into the Soulknife and Thrallherd. :)
As for the question about variants to the Pyrokineticist PrC - we are planning something like that either as a web enhancement, or as part of our upcoming APG-style supplement.
A revised Beta for the psychic warrior has been posted:
This is mostly modest changes - all the bonuses from the different paths are now typed, rather than untyped, most of them are now a scaling bonus, rather than flat Wisdom-based, a few new paths have been added, and the like.
Thanks for the info on the Soulknife. From a broad perspective, I like the way it seems to be headed, and appreciate that you're trying to keep it a bit more similar to the original.For those who were worried about the soulknife, you can see the thread about the changes I have planned here.
Now, none of those changes are set in stone, but they should give you an indication of the type of changes to expect for the Soulknife while continuing through Beta.
Agreed! The Soulknife was probably my favorite of the psionic classes and I was not sure I liked the direction things were going when I looked over the previous draft. I like it now a lot more!
I like the Psi Races, however I liked the old style half giant having the +2 to health, hey there supposed to be big and tough... but the +2 to wisdom does go with the Psi part though...
I like the idea of going with a Norse style "Land of the Linnorm Kings" Half Giant, having the +2 Fire acclimated changed to Cold acclimated and giving them a distinctly Norse Viking look.
It would be interesting to see the psychic giant that was the parrent. Something like a smaller version of the Frost Giant say 8-10 feet tall, but Psionic and living in the Colder Clims like the Taiga, Arboreal forrest areas, Fjords, Tundra, and Glaciers... A great Frostfell Creature.
I realize you are doing revisions on the Soulknife, but I'm commenting on the beta because that is what I read.
1) this isn't a class about fighting, this is a class about building an uber and modular set of weapons and armor. The modularity of the weapons the soulknife has is unbelievable!
2) d10 Hit dice and full BAB...okay for the moment. (on Examination, I'd drop this to Psy warrior equiv...this class doesn't fight...it enchants its armor and weapons to fight!)
3) 6 skill points/level...what? Oh, it has no armor proficiencies...interesting tradeoff.
Here is what this version of the class gained over 20 levels...
All damage types on command.
Throwing/Returning/Throw anything.
TWF (all)
+another 9 of weapon abilities, with another +1 optional. No penalty for multiple formats at high levels. And these abilities are MODULAR...incredibly so, at level 20.
Scaling psychic dmg, that can be redefined to ABILITY SCORE dmg. Incredible. at high levels, this is a one round kill on a significant number of enemies (anything below 10 in a mental stat, like most beasts/magical beasts).
The fighter's armor and dex/armor scaling ability, the hallmark of his class.
NO COST for magic arms and armor. HUGE. THe Soulblade gets 300k to spend on other gear...and since his weapon/shield are so modular, they are also INFINITELY superior to anything another class can come up with.
Going to fight the dragon? +4 Dragonbane Cold Lawful Holy Mindblade.
Demons? +5 Evil outsider bane holy Lawful mindblade.
City adventuring? +3 Humanbane Wounding Biofeedback weapon.
Undead? +5 Ghost Touch Undeadbane Holy Flaming weapon.
Battlefield: +4 Nameyerbane Brilliant Weapon.
With any knowledge of the enemy, the MIndblade will have the ideal weapon to face them. And he automatically has piercing against the rakshasa, blud against skels, and slashing against zombies, just by a change of form!
It's also basically IMMUNE to sundering, dispelling and disjoining, as well as anti-magic! I wish my fighter's weapons and armor worked full force in anti-magic for just a will save...
He has the greatest arsenal of magical weaponry in existence, and all he needs is a little bit of time. The ability to do BANE on a weapon alone is incredible...+2 Th/+9 dmg for a +1 is not to be passed up! He effectively has +12 Weaponry by level 20...
This then applies to his armor, as well. Red Dragon? +5 Greater Fire Res. Theives? +5 Heavy Fortification. Undead? +5 Ghost Touch. Spellcasters? +5 Spell Resistance.
The ability to manifest the armor and weapon and adjust it to anything on the fly (relatively) is unbelievably strong with ANY preparation. Add that to freeing up 300k of gold to the character and you have some major, major balance problems, not to mention the duplication of feats and unique abilities that others have dwelt on. If you're thinking of the 8 hour time restriction, that's the night before, coupled with a 1k Ring of Sustenance while every one sleeps.
I mean, Improved Critical, the feat...in this case it is effectively working on 4 to 6 different weapons.
This class is in major need of revision on many levels. And I don't even want to know what justified the massive speed increase afoot abilities that scaled. It gets +5 gear basically before any other class does...just...wow...I'm not sure how to take this.
==Aelryinth
I realize you are doing revisions on the Soulknife, but I'm commenting on the beta because that is what I read.
And that's a fair assessment.
The changes I'm planning to implement include:
Pulling out the armor & shield aspects.
Removing several blade skills, including those dealing with psychic strike.
Removing many of the bonus feats.
Making psychic strike not work on mindless creatures.
I realize you are doing revisions on the Soulknife, but I'm commenting on the beta because that is what I read ...
Yes, Maverick Wolf had some good ideas in there (I like the mechanic of putting all the tricks into blade skills, for example) but most everybody was agreed that the beta was broken to a greater or lesser extent as it seemed to gestalt the best features from the old soulknife, the paladin, ranger and barbarian all into one class, then turned the dials up to ten.
Psionic Proficiency (Ex): A psychic warrior treats his base attack as equal to his psychic warrior level for the purposes of requirements for psionic feats.
I have two issues with this class ability. The first is it seems a little strong maybe a little too strong. Getting access to feats before anybody else jsut doesn't feel right to me. The second is combined with Psionic Body why would a psychic warrior choose anything other than a psionic feat unless it was absolutely necessary. If part of the reason is to encourage the psychic warrior to focus on psionic feats to make him/her different than the fighter then I can accept it.
Doug
Psionic Proficiency (Ex): A psychic warrior treats his base attack as equal to his psychic warrior level for the purposes of requirements for psionic feats.
I have two issues with this class ability. The first is it seems a little strong maybe a little too strong. Getting access to feats before anybody else jsut doesn't feel right to me. The second is combined with Psionic Body why would a psychic warrior choose anything other than a psionic feat unless it was absolutely necessary. If part of the reason is to encourage the psychic warrior to focus on psionic feats to make him/her different than the fighter then I can accept it.
Doug
Doug, part of the reason is because psionic feats like Greater Psionic Weapon have a lower BAB requirement than you might expect because Psychic Warriors and Soulknives in 3.5 had average BAB. With the soulknife in Psionics Unleashed moving to full BAB, this opens up balance issues, because now he can get those feats earlier than the psychic warrior, but there's no chance we're going to move the psychic warrior up to full BAB.
This was a means to balance the feats (along with net new feats) based upon full BAB progression, without giving the psychic warrior full BAB.
Psionic Proficiency (Ex): A psychic warrior treats his base attack as equal to his psychic warrior level for the purposes of requirements for psionic feats.
I have two issues with this class ability. The first is it seems a little strong maybe a little too strong. Getting access to feats before anybody else jsut doesn't feel right to me. The second is combined with Psionic Body why would a psychic warrior choose anything other than a psionic feat unless it was absolutely necessary. If part of the reason is to encourage the psychic warrior to focus on psionic feats to make him/her different than the fighter then I can accept it.
Doug
Doug, part of the reason is because psionic feats like Greater Psionic Weapon have a lower BAB requirement than you might expect because Psychic Warriors and Soulknives in 3.5 had average BAB. With the soulknife in Psionics Unleashed moving to full BAB, this opens up balance issues, because now he can get those feats earlier than the psychic warrior, but there's no chance we're going to move the psychic warrior up to full BAB.
This was a means to balance the feats (along with net new feats) based upon full BAB progression, without giving the psychic warrior full BAB.
That makes perfect sense and removes my objection. With that resolved I think the psychic warrior is ready for final production.
Has anyone run a SoulKnife build against a Fighter build to make sure it's not incredibly overpowered?
The first flag that the Soulknife throws up to me is having Bane as a weapon option. The ability to give your weapon any Bane as a full-round action is... powerful.
Well, he can't. :)
Changing the abilities of the blade takes 8 hours.
Changing the weapon type / damage type of the blade is what takes a full round action (bludgeoning / 2-handed / etc).
At least, that's what it will be if the current release doesn't properly reflect that.
My mistake. Eight hours to change magic, full-round to change between the three mindblade builds, a move action to change damage type.
I have to note: the entry for the mindblade felt like the longest single block of text for a class feature that I've seen. It would probably make sense to introduce the feature a little more gradually and break it up into features with different names, just to make it easier to digest.
Or maybe I just have a short attention span today.
My mistake. Eight hours to change magic, full-round to change between the three mindblade builds, a move action to change damage type.
I have to note: the entry for the mindblade felt like the longest single block of text for a class feature that I've seen. It would probably make sense to introduce the feature a little more gradually and break it up into features with different names, just to make it easier to digest.
Or maybe I just have a short attention span today.
No worries - that's definitely one of the changes I've been making for a second Beta release of the soulknife. I'm hoping to have something ready within the next few days. I've cut out about 2 paragraphs (one cut entirely, one moved to its own class feature entry) and am debating moving the entire "enhancement" aspect of the mind blade into a separate entry, as well.
To take care of the cash supremacy, I'd use the mindblade as follows:
The Mindblade carries a focusing talisman on his person at all times, representative of his mindblade. (maybe it's a tatto, or crystal on his forehead. Tattoo sounds better). Within that tattoo are stored all aspects of his mindblade.
His mindblade is by default considered a masterwork weapon. At level 3, and every 4 levels thereafter, the bonus of his mindblade increases by 1, to a maximum of +5. This enhancement bonus may not be traded out or modified.
The mindblade may sacrifice gold to increase the efficacy and versatility of his mindblade...this represents modifications to his tattoo. The components to modify his tattoo are exactly the same as the cost to forge a magical weapon (or magical armor). If the mindblade wishes to have his armor or mindshield enhanced, he must pay the appropriate costs to modify his tattoo.
The mindblade gains +1 of alternate abilities at level 4, and then +1 every other level thereafter, to a default maximum of +9. Optionally, the only Bane available to him is Psibane.
The mindblade may modify his mindblade's current template with eight hours of work. He may not have more add-ons to his mindblade then its current enhancement bonus -1 (thus, at level 11, his mindblade at +3 could have +2 of enhancements, for a +5 weapon). (the ability to add +1 more ability could potentially increase this to equal to enhancement).
When he learns a new enhancement, he may elect to swap out old enhancements for a new one. This is typically used to select enhancements of higher cost. he may not swap out his default enhancement bonus.
Having a different set of enhancements for dual wielding should require a feat. It could also accommodate having a shield that is different.
Adding Adamantine, Cold Iron, Mithral or Silver to his mindblade/armor should cost the same as adding it to however many weapons, shield, and armor that he has. Switching to different damage types among his weapons should cost a feat (exactly like Versatile strike for UA), and at least cost the same as masterwork weapons.
Increasing the speed of his ability to swap enhancements should be a feat or ability gained by class levels.
Adding throwing/returning to his weapon may only be done if he has the dagger/handaxe mindblade. The cost to do so is equal to his next enhancement bonus, but does not count as one added towards his limit.
The total amount of bonuses on his weapons may not exceed +10. This includes throwing/returning at +2. The dagger style should have a different template to accommodate this.
If the Mindblade wishes to add fixed cost enhancements to his mindblade (that do not count towards enhancements), he may do so. He must pay the cost for each weapon form he wants the enhancement to apply to (if dual wielding, he must pay for each weapon).
At high level, the tattoes of the Mindblade will be fantastic structures, crackling with the power of his internal weapon.
The versatility of being able to switch armor and weapon buffs should be the central hallmark of the class. Abilities above and beyond this should be limited and acquired by feats. Modular weapons and armor is immensely useful in combat. Having the right magical weapons to take on a foe is superb, as is being able to switch styles to maximize dmg output.
Weapon Focus (mindblade) and improved Critical (mindblade) should work on all forms of the mindblade, once these limiting factors are put in place.
The mindblade should 'slightly' exceed the basic armor/weapons available to other classes by level. the ability to switch extra magical bonuses is bonus , and his 'extra' is getting these bonuses sooner then others. Being able to do so quickly is something he should gain as he levels, not just a capstone...give up uber class abilities for getting the right weapon for the right occasion. there really is little difference from getting +5 armor at the same time the Fighter has +3 and +2 Dex benefit, after all.
Kindly note, the Mindblade is totally independent of shops and time to increase his mindblade's power. Moreover, he also gets to use his gold at full value for his mindblade, instead of 1/2. These are extremely substantial!
If you allow Bane broadly, note it is THE single best enhancement you can get against any particular foe. I'd fully expect Humanbane, dragonbane, undeadbane, and evilbane as options on just about every sane mindblade, dropping or adding one or two others dependent on campaign (i.e. Giantbane for Rise of the Runelords, etc). the ability to Bane your weapon against whatever foe you are facing is fantastically nice. +2/+9 is quite a kicker for +1.
==Aelryinth
Cash supremecy is an odd problem.
The wealth per level guidelines have always stigmied the weaker martial classes far more then the hilariously powerful casters. Even the cleric, who was more or less a fighter +more, needed distinctly less magical equipment then any standard fighter.
Frankly, any class that fights against the WPL restriction put on martial classes is a good thing.
Can we change the names of all four classes please?
This was discussed, we did wonder on the DSP boards if the names of the classes made a difference and thought about changing the name 'psion' to 'mystic' and the 'wilder' to 'savant', but decided that because everyone DSP is aiming at as their market is familiar with the old names, they would stay. There is a DM's advice page I'm working on that contains alternate names, though.
Cash supremecy is an odd problem.
The wealth per level guidelines have always stigmied the weaker martial classes far more then the hilariously powerful casters. Even the cleric, who was more or less a fighter +more, needed distinctly less magical equipment then any standard fighter.
Frankly, any class that fights against the WPL restriction put on martial classes is a good thing.
I agree. the problem is 'anyone' can pick up a weapon and armor, and thus count it as something to level up. The closest thing you got to this is Ancestral Relic, which gave you a 350k gp limit on an item in the old game, AND allowed you to sacrifice stuff at full value to it...effectively +175k to your GP limit.
Having 'free' improvements in armor and weapons by melee level, ala the OA samurai or something, would be a great fix to that. Casters get their spells, Melees get their weapons.
4E partly mitigated this by forcing casters to get implements, which imitated weapon costs, and doing away with bracers for lightest armor, which forced armor costs on them. It's another way of solving the same problem.
===Aelryinth
I'd also like to point out that the Mindblade should gain no advantages in anti-magic shells sans his weapon/armor enhancements. I.e. the mechanic to manifest can remain in place, but while within an AM shell, the mindblade should only have the equivalent of Masterwork gear, UNLESS you have some mechanic to allow other melee classes the same.
==Aelryinth
